Long Island Con Man John Re Sentenced to 5 Years for

I N T E R N AT I O N A L F O U N DAT I O N F O R A R T R E S E A R C H
In this issue
Vienna 1900:
Portraiture, Perception,
Reception, and Restitution
East Hampton Fraudster
Gets 5 Years —
with IFAR’s Help
Caravaggio or Not?
Either Way, Sotheby’s
Not Guilty
Haring Suit Dismissed
Artists Resale Rights Redux
Updates in Claims for
Works by Cranach,
Picasso and Pissarro
— and More
I N C O R P O R AT I N G
STO LE N ART ALE R T ®
2
27
N E WS & U PDAT E S
2
Was Sotheby’s Negligent in Missing a “Caravaggio”? British Court Says “No”
7
Authenticity Suit Against Haring Foundation Dismissed; Appeal Filed
11
NY Court Dismisses Suit Against Bavaria Over Picasso Portrait; Appeal Pending
14
Rulings in Two Restitution Battles for Contested Pissarros
16
Lawsuit Over Norton Simon Cranachs Creeps Forward — Museum Files Answer to Complaint
19
Artists Resale Royalties Back in the News
22
In Brief:
Two Gurlitt Works Returned
El Salvador Agreement Renewed
French Court Short-Circuits Picasso’s Electrician
24
Cambodia Postscript
25
Broad Cultural Property Bill Introduced in Congress —
Includes Import Restrictions on Syrian Objects
LONG ISLAND CON MAN JOHN RE SENTENCED TO 5 YEARS FOR FRAUD
THAT IFAR HELPED EXPOSE
Lisa Duffy-Zeballos and Sharon Flescher
35
VIENNA 1900 : PORTRAITURE, PERCEPTION, RECEPTION, AND RESTITUTION
An IFAR Evening, October 10, 2014
36
VIENNESE PORTRAITURE IN THE AGE OF ANGST
Alessandra Comini
47
PORTRAITURE AND THE BEHOLDER’S SHARE — PERSPECTIVES FROM
THE NEW BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE OF MIND
Eric R. Kandel
58
EGON SCHIELE – RECEPTION AND RESTITUTION
Jane Kallir
72
DONOR ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
75
STOLEN ART ALERT®
COVER: GUSTAV KLIMT (Austrian, 1862-1918). Judith with the Head of Holofernes, 1901.
Oil on canvas. Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna. Ph: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY.
See article starting on page 47.
I FA R ® J O U R N A L V O L . 1 6 , N o s . 1 & 2 © 2 0 1 5
1
LONG ISLAND CON MAN JOHN RE SENTENCED TO 5 YEARS
FOR FRAUD THAT IFAR HELPED EXPOSE
LISA DUFFY-ZEBALLOS* AND SHARON FLESCHER**
With district court Judge P. Kevin Castel calling
him a “facile liar” who planned a “9-year scheme”
to defraud the public, East Hampton fraudster John
Darren Re was sentenced on May 10 to five years in
federal prison, starting immediately, and ordered
to pay restitution in the amount of $2,225,807 to
his victims.1 Re, aged 55 and dealing with “severe
mental health issues” according to his courtappointed attorney, pled guilty in December 2014
to a scheme involving the sale of dozens of fake artworks purportedly by Jackson Pollock and Willem
de Kooning. He claimed to have discovered them in
the basement of deceased East Hampton resident,
George Schulte. The sentencing — on Re’s birthday — marked the conclusion of a multi-year FBI
investigation led by Special Agent Meridith Savona.
It doesn’t, however, mark the end of the case. On
May 18, Re filed a Notice of Appeal with the Second
Circuit Court of Appeals.
As discussed in the last issue of IFAR Journal,
the government Complaint relied in large part
on a 120-page negative report (see below) written by IFAR (the International Foundation for Art
Research) regarding 45 of the fake Pollocks, which
Re later admitted selling with a concocted provenance.2 Re has not admitted to having painted the
* Lisa Duffy-Zeballos, Ph.D., is the Art Research Director of IFAR.
**Sharon Flescher, Ph.D., is Executive Director of IFAR and Editor-inChief of the IFAR Journal.
1 United States v. John Re, No. 14-cr-00550-PKC (S.D.N.Y. filed Aug.
18, 2014), appealed at No. 15-1629 (2nd Cir. Filed May 18, 2015).
2 See Lisa Duffy-Zeballos and Sharon Flescher, “East Hampton
Con Man Known to IFAR Pleads Guilty: John Re Admits Schulte
Provenance was Concocted,” IFAR Journal, Vol. 15, nos. 3&4 (2014),
pp. 3-5.
works, however, nor has he said who did, despite a
direct question about that from the judge. He has
only admitted that all the works were fake and that
the story of finding them in Schulte’s basement
was bogus.
“The government Complaint relied in large
part on a 120-page negative report … written
by IFAR regarding 45 of the fake Pollocks.”
At the sentencing, Re claimed that he found the
works (then he said it was his brother) in a storage
unit in a New York warehouse, but he had no documents or details to back it up. One of his victims,
listed in the Complaint as Collector 2, but who
identified himself in court as John Szemansco,
didn’t buy the story, telling the court that “Mr. Re
knows well how important provenance is,” and if
he had found the works in a warehouse, he would
have the documents to prove it, and would have
researched the finding. Calling Re “smart” and
“very calculating,” Szemansco urged the judge to
mete out a harsh sentence in order “to send a message” and show that there is “justice for people in
the art world who are being victimized.” Re could
have received up to 20 years in prison; the sentencing guidelines presented to the judge, however,
recommended 37-46 months. But Judge Castel
imposed 60 months as a warning, he said, to others
who might contemplate a “get rich quick plan in
selling fake art.”
In our previous Journal article, we included a brief
account of IFAR’s involvement with the fake John
Re “Pollocks” (no “de Koonings” were submitted to
IFAR). Below, we provide a more detailed discussion
I FA R ® J O U R N A L V O L . 1 6 , N o s . 1 & 2 © 2 0 1 5 27
of IFAR’s research on dozens of “Pollocks” from the
so-called Schulte collection.
although such transactions were rare: Daniel Miller
received Silver over Black, White, Yellow, and Red
as payment for a grocery bill, and, in 1950 attorney
THE “POLLOCKS" IN THE BASEMENT
Gerard Weinstock accepted Composition with Red
Arc and Horses in lieu of payment for drawing up
Although the Complaint mentioned a scheme startPollock’s will. Pollock also gave fellow artist Helen
ing in 2005, in fact, IFAR first encountered John
Frankenthaler a small work on paper for her wedding.
Re and the “Schulte collection” in 2001, when a
Nevertheless, such gifts and exchanges, always with
small dripped painting on paper signed and dated
known friends and associates, were to the best of our
“Jackson Pollock 1948” (FIG. 1) was submitted to
knowledge limited to one work of art. The discovery
our Authentication
of a large group of undocumented Pollock paintResearch Service. The
ings said to have been received for work performed,
painting was said to
therefore, naturally raised suspicions, which deepened
have been found by
when we could find no evidence that either Pollock or
Re, along with other
Krasner knew Schulte. His name was not mentioned
ostensible Pollocks and
in the published literature or unpublished documende Koonings, while
tation on Pollock, and an examination of Pollock’s
IFAR
cleaning out the basecancelled checks revealed no payments to Schulte that
FIGURE 1. IFAR #01.05, painting on paper,
ment of the late George
might suggest business transactions between them.
12 1/2 x 21 5/8 in., submitted to IFAR in 2001.
Schulte (1922-1996), a
Photo: IFAR.
Nor could we find any reference to this particular
woodworker, restorer
painting in any of the published or unpublished docand appraiser who had been a longtime resident of
umentation on Pollock.
East Hampton. A notarized letter signed by Schulte’s widow, Barbara, stated that her late husband
had helped Pollock and de Kooning “set up their
“Re has not admitted to
studios” and had received the works directly from
the artists, presumably in lieu of payment (FIG. 2).
having painted the works, nor has
FIGURE 2. Affidavit signed by Barbara
Schulte and John Re, submitted with IFAR
#01.05. Photo: IFAR.
28
While it is now
known that the
provenance was concocted, at the time
that the work was
submitted to IFAR
it sounded “plausible," if unlikely. In
the 1940s and 1950s
East Hampton had
a small year-round
population, including
Jackson Pollock and
his wife Lee Krasner,
who had moved there
in 1945. Moreover,
Pollock was known
to have exchanged
artworks for services,
I FA R ® J O U R N A L V O L . 1 6 , N o . 1 & 2 © 2 0 1 5
he said who did.”
More importantly, the painting itself was an unconvincing pastiche, lacking the vitality and compositional integrity of Pollock’s 1948/1949 black
and red works on paper, such as Untitled 1948-49
in the Metropolitan Museum
(FIG. 3). Evidently unfamiliar with the
material qualities of Pollock’s
works on paper,
the painter of
the IFAR work
FIGURE 3. JACKSON POLLOCK, Untitled,
tried to mimic
1948-49. Ink and enamel on paper, 22 ½ x 30 in.
Pollock’s effects The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY. © 2015
The Pollock-Krasner Foundation/ARS, NY.
using incorrect
methods. Thus, in an attempt to replicate the lines
found in Pollock’s dripped paintings on paper prepared with wet gesso, where the interaction of the
enamel paint on the gesso produced a two-or threepart dripped line that is dense at the edges and
translucent in the center, the faker used an ungessoed piece of paper and simply over-painted the
dripped lines to make them darker at the edges.
“Judge Castel imposed 60 months
as a warning, he said, to others who
might contemplate a ‘get rich quick
plan in selling fake art’.”
Furthermore, the work appeared intentionally aged.
It had been executed on an old and damaged piece
of paper, but, tellingly, while the edges of the paper
support were abraded and worn, the paint drips
over the frayed edges were not. Similarly, although
there was a prominent vertical fold down the center
of the page, which was present before the work was
executed, as evidenced by the black paint that ran
into the fractured paper fibers along the fold line
and pooled in the creases, the paint on top of the
vertical fold — a brittle powdery black paint highly
susceptible to damage — was suspiciously intact.
45 purported Pollocks on canvas, fiberboard, and
paper that a single owner had recently purchased
from Re. Each work was submitted with a document
signed by Re, but not by Barbara Schulte, identifying
it as a work from the Schulte collection (FIG. 4). The
images sent to us preliminarily showed a significant
variation in quality among the paintings. If authentic, such a large group could have changed our
understanding of Pollock’s oeuvre; if inauthentic, we
were dealing with an enormous fraud.
IFAR agreed to review the entire collection — in
fact, we insisted on reviewing all or none — and
stipulated that every work would be examined
individually by us with Pollock specialists. We also
insisted, as a precondition of our involvement, that
we be allowed at our discretion to undertake forensic sampling and analysis of pigments, binders and
other materials from a selected number of works.
We retraced and supplemented our earlier provenance research, this time succeeding in interviewing John Re himself, as well as a number of George
Schulte’s friends and family members. By telephone,
Re informed us that he was a woodworker who had
worked at the East Hampton antique restoration
shop formerly owned by Schulte, whom he never
met. Schulte’s widow,
Barbara, however,
For these reasons (and more), IFAR rejected the
occasionally hired
painting as a Pollock, noting in our report that the
him for odd jobs. All
painting’s provenance was unsubstantiated and
of that was true. The
highly problematic.
rest has since been
discredited, includShortly after we sent the owner our report, we
ing Re’s claim that in
learned that other purported Pollock and de Koon2000, while cleaning
ing works on paper from the so-called Schulte colout the Schultes’ baselection, some with an apparently identical crease
ment, he discovered
down the center of the paper, were appearing on the
approximately 65
art market and on eBay. Later, in 2008-2009, two
paintings, drawings,
other paintings bearing a Schulte provenance — one
and mixed media
on paper and one on canvas — were submitted to
works by Pollock, as
us, and neither of them bore up as Pollocks either.
well as 30 drawings
and sketchbooks by
A COLOSSAL CACHE OF FAKES
de Kooning. In fact,
FIGURE 4. Transfer of Ownership form
The extent of the problem only became apparent in the works were never
signed by John Re submitted with IFAR #11.08
2011, however, when IFAR was contacted regarding
in the basement.
in 2011. Photo: IFAR.
I FA R ® J O U R N A L V O L . 1 6 , N o s . 1 & 2 © 2 0 1 5 29
objected, he began signing only his own name to
the sale documents. Re added that there came a
point when Barbara Schulte no longer wished to be
involved, and sold him the rest of her collection. To
what degree Barbara Schulte was complicit in the
scheme or exploited is not fully clear. Her family told
IFAR in court after Re’s sentencing that they believe
she was exploited and their good name damaged.
IFAR
IFAR
FIGURE 5. IFAR #11.40, painting
FIGURE 6. IFAR #11.11, painting on
on masonite, 25 ½ x 19 ½ in. One
of a group of 45 works submitted
to IFAR in 2011. Photo: IFAR.
canvas, 49 ½ x 37 in. One of a group of
45 works submitted to IFAR in 2011.
Photo: IFAR.
IFAR
IFAR
FIGURE 7. IFAR #11.17, painting on
paper, 14 ½ x 20 in. One of a group
of 45 works submitted to IFAR in
2011. Photo: IFAR.
FIGURE 8. IFAR #11.18, painting on
paper mounted on cardboard, 13 ½
x 20 in. One of a group of 45 works
submitted to IFAR in 2011. Photo: IFAR.
IFAR
FIGURE 9. IFAR #11.08, painting on
fiberboard, 21 5/8 x 33 5/8 in. One of a
group of 45 works submitted to IFAR in
2011. Photo: IFAR.
IFAR
FIGURE 10. IFAR #11.09, painting
on masonite, 14 x 23 in. One of a
group of 45 works submitted to
IFAR in 2011. Photo: IFAR.
Re also told IFAR that Barbara Schulte had authorized him to act as her agent in selling the works and
had allowed him to remove the paintings from her
basement. With her permission, he said, he signed
Mrs. Schulte’s name to some of the early affidavits
he provided with the paintings, but when she later
3 0 I FA R ® J O U R N A L V O L . 1 6 , N o . 1 & 2 © 2 0 1 5
By the time of IFAR’s investigation, Mrs. Schulte
had been institutionalized for dementia, but none
of the Schultes’ friends, business associates, or relatives, including children and stepchildren whom we
contacted, could recall ever seeing Abstract Expressionist-style paintings in the house. Nor could anyone recall Schulte claiming to have known Jackson
Pollock or possess paintings by him.
As to the works themselves — most bearing “Pollock” signatures and some dates — not one was
remotely credible when examined in person,
although few had appeared plausible when seen
in photographs. The paintings displayed a wearying homogeneity in palette, technique and physical
properties uncharacteristic of Pollock. The large
drip-style paintings on canvas and fiberboard, for
example, shared a basic palette of red, mustard yellow, teal, and matte black. All of the works were
unstretched and unframed, and few exhibited the
expected tacking holes, stretcher marks or other
indicators that they had ever been mounted or hung.
Particularly troubling, a large number of paintings
had been brushed with a gray wash or a dark brown
liquid coating, which served no purpose but to dull
the colors and make the paintings appear old.
Stylistically, the 45 paintings fell into three distinct
Pollockesque subsets: early 1940s-style figural or
brushed and dripped abstract compositions (FIGS.
5 and 6); 1948-1949-style dripped and spattered
paintings on paper (FIGS. 7 and 8); and large-scale
classic dripped late 1947-1952 paintings on canvas
and fiberboard (FIGS. 9 and 10).
The least convincing were the early figurative compositions, which included an amateurish take on
Pollock’s 1943 Guardians of the Secret (FIG. 11). The
motifs in the central panel of the IFAR painting
appeared to have been influenced by the catalogue
of the Museum of Modern Art’s 1999 Pollock retrospective, in which it was first observed that the
central frieze in Guardians included inverted figures
(FIG. 12). The faker “corrected” the orientation of
Pollock’s figures, and added other elements, such
as the eye-in-a-triangle motif and a Picassoesque
profile of a head found in other Pollock paintings
of that period, along with motifs that do not factor
into any of Pollock’s works.
The works on paper, equally problematic, had all
been intentionally distressed prior to painting.
Like the work reviewed by IFAR in 2001, although
missing the vertical fold, the tattered edges of the
papers were frayed, yet the paint that had dripped
over the edges was suspiciously intact. Most of the
paper supports had been brushed with a dry pigment before and sometimes after they were painted,
apparently to simulate the grime and discoloration
that occurs naturally over time.
Stylistically, the paintings on paper conflated
incompatible elements of Pollock's late 1940s-style
works on paper into a single composition. Thus,
while the color palettes evoked Pollock’s black and
red dripped paintings of 1948, their composition
and linearity simulated his 1948-1949 black and
white paintings on paper.
The largest subgroup comprised paintings on
canvas and masonite executed in Pollock’s classic dripped style. In one of the better works in this
group (FIG. 9), the underlying web of thick black
lines overlaid with colored drips was superficially
consistent with Pollock’s layering, but its dripped
black armature was too heavily described. Moreover,
the yellow figure-like image in the center is unlike
any of Pollock's figural drips. This painting, too, had
been artificially aged. A heavy brown veneer was
brushed selectively over areas of white in an attempt
to “knock back” the brightness of the white paint.
In sum, not one of the 45 paintings was stylistically
convincing as an authentic Pollock.
FORENSIC ANALYSIS
IFAR
FIGURE 11. IFAR #11.12, painting on can-
vas, 28 x 46 ¾ in. One of a group of 45 works
submitted to IFAR in 2011. Photo: IFAR.
Nor were the materials correct. Fifty-three samples
of paint and primer were taken from thirteen paintings and analyzed using Fourier transform infrared
microspectrometry (FTIR) and dispersive confocal
Raman microscopy. All but one of the works contained binders or pigments that were either anomalous or anachronistic for Jackson Pollock.3
Anachronistic binding media, that is, materials
developed after Pollock’s death in 1956 or after the
date ascribed to the work in question, were found in
six of the 13 paintings tested. Two of the six paintings contained ASA (acrylic-styrene-acrylonitrile
terpolymer), which was commercially available only
since about 1970.4 Similarly, the silver-colored paint
3 The binding media could not be identified in samples taken from
FIGURE 12. JACKSON POLLOCK, Guardians
of the Secret, 1943. Oil on canvas, 48 3/8 x 6 ft. 3 3/8 in.
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
© 2015 The Pollock-Krasner Foundation/ARS, NY.
one of the paintings tested.
4 Harvard University Art Museums, Technical Study of Three Paintings
Attributed to Jackson Pollock, 2007, http://www.artmuseums.harvard.
edu/home/HUAMreport012907pdf.
I FA R ® J O U R N A L V O L . 1 6 , N o s . 1 & 2 © 2 0 1 5 31
found in three of the paintings tested was
not the aluminum paint preferred by Pollock, but
a titanium dioxidecoated mica interference pigment.
This non-metallic
pigment, which uses
flakes of mica to
imitate the luster of
metallic paints, was
introduced in 1961,
IFAR
five years after PolFIGURE 13. Detail of silver paint (oxidelock’s death.5
coated mica pigment) taken from IFAR
(FIG. 13)
#11.36. One of a group of 45 works
submitted to IFAR in 2011. Photo: IFAR.
Also damning was
the presence of
anomalous paint binders — materials available during Pollock’s lifetime but not thus far found in any
of his works — in almost all of the paintings tested.
Ten of the thirteen paintings contained acrylic binders, but to date no acrylic paint of any kind has been
found in a documented Pollock.6
In fact, only two types of acrylic paint were even
available in Pollock’s lifetime (although not known
to have been used by him): the acrylic resin paint
Magna, which was developed in 1949 by Leonard
Bocour, and the aqueous acrylic emulsion paint
Rhoplex AC-33, which was marketed for artists as
Liquitex starting in 1954 or 1955.
“All but one of the works contained binders
or pigments that were either anomalous or
anachronistic for Jackson Pollock.”
Even if Pollock had used acrylic paints, their use
would be confined to works executed after 1949, but
since several of the paintings that IFAR tested dated
stylistically to before 1949, the presence of acrylics
in these works was not only anomalous for Pollock,
but anachronistic as well.
Testing also revealed the presence of polyvinyl acetate (PVA) emulsion paints in five of the paintings
tested. Typically used as interior house paints, PVA
emulsion paints became commercially available in
the 1940s, and were available during Pollock’s lifetime. Their use was not widespread among American artists, however, who preferred alkyd house
paints,7 and PVA emulsion paints are not known to
have been found in authentic works by Pollock.
Not only did the overwhelming majority of the works
we sampled contain problematic materials, none of
the paints tested contained materials more typically
found in Pollock, such as oil, alkyd, or nitrocellulose
paints.8 The testing results from this representative
sample of works naturally cast doubts on the authenticity of all of the other paintings in the group.
The forensic results, together with the stylistic
incongruities, poor quality, unsubstantiated and
false provenance, and other evidence of fakery led
IFAR to reject all 45 paintings. As fakes, these works
were not especially sophisticated. Irrespective of
their provenance, the Schulte “Pollocks” would
probably not have fooled any specialist on close
examination.
We concluded that the group represented a “deliberate and pervasive attempt to deceive” and, if circulated, posed a significant threat to the art world’s
understanding of Jackson Pollock.
As we noted in our earlier article, John Re later contacted IFAR claiming that the paintings we reviewed
were not from the Schulte collection but from the
“Taylor Robinson collection,” and he insisted that
IFAR retract its report in light of this new information. We did not; nor would it have mattered, since
the rejection was based on far more than provenance.
THE CRIMINAL CASE
In July 2014 John Re was indicted on suspicion
of selling over 60 known fakes to a handful of
5 James Martin, “What Materials Tell Us about the Age and Attribution
of the Matter Paintings” IFAR Journal, Vol. 10, no. 1 (2008), pp. 30-32.
See also Howard Linton, Nacreous Pigment Compositions, U.S. Patent
3,087,828, assigned to E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., Wilmington, DE
(filed 28 June 1961, issued April 30, 1963).
6 Martin, p. 33.
32
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7 Tom Learner, “A Review of Synthetic Binding Media in Twentiethcentury Paints,” The Conservator, No. 24, (2000), pp. 96-103.
8 Oil binders were identified in samples of primer from two works,
most likely from a commercially pre-primed canvas.
unsuspecting buyers, netting him an estimated
$2.5 million.9 Although Re initially claimed that
he sold the paintings as “attributed to” Pollock
and de Kooning, he recanted when confronted
with the eBay listings and his own signed statements to the contrary. As part of his December plea
agreement, Re admitted that he had fabricated the
Schulte provenance. At the sentencing, however,
which was attended by several of Re’s victims as
well as members of the Schulte family, Re admitted that the works were all fake, but insisted he had
believed they were authentic. According to Re, the
Vered Gallery in East Hampton, which eventually
purchased and marketed 22 of the de Koonings
on paper, but was not charged in connection with
the fraud,10 had told him that the works could be
authentic, and he chose to believe that he had “hit
the jackpot.” Re said that he too “felt like a victim.”
Re’s innocence was vigorously challenged by both
the prosecutor and Re’s victims, several of whom
had submitted impact letters to the court. John Szemansco, the owner of the 45 paintings investigated
by IFAR, told the court his involvement with Re had
cost him 32 years of his retirement savings and that
he was fighting off foreclosure on his house. Referring to Re’s previous convictions, Szemansco warned
the court that “If [Re] gets back on the street, he’s
going to do it again, maybe not with art, but with
something else.” Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew
Adams focused on the injury caused to the Schulte
family. He reminded the court how Re had preyed
on and apparently manipulated an elderly woman,
noting that Re’s decade long “exploitation of Barbara
Schulte speaks to the viciousness of the crime.”
Describing Re as a “con artist and a swindler” who
“excels in the art of manipulation,” Judge Castel
sentenced him to five years in federal prison with
an additional three years of monitored supervision.
Re was also ordered to pay $2,225,807 in restitution
to his victims and forfeit Deep Quest, a submarinelike movie prop modeled after the naval submarine
“FBI Special Agent Savona told IFAR that …
there were at least 150 Pollock and
de Kooning works with a Schulte provenance
marketed by John Re. Some are in
collections as yet unknown. ‘Owners should
be on notice,’ Savona cautions, that
‘any Pollock or de Kooning that has the
Schulte provenance is fake and
cannot be legally sold as authentic.’ Anyone
owning a work with a Schulte
provenance may contact Agent Savona …”
of that name (which Re’s attorney asked be applied
to the restitution). In recognition of his financial
difficulties, the judge waived the recommended
fine, but did charge Re $100 mandatory special
assessment.
John Re’s legal troubles are not over. In July, he
is scheduled to be sentenced in New York State
Supreme Court for felony state income tax fraud,
a charge to which he has already pleaded guilty.11
That investigation — also over a period of years
— was led by Brett Carlson in the Suffolk County
District Attorney’s Office. Re also faces at least one
civil complaint in California relating to the sale of
21 fraudulent artworks, three of which were purported “Pollocks.”12
Meanwhile, FBI Special Agent Savona told IFAR
that although only approximately 74 works were
mentioned in the court documents, there were at
least 150 Pollock and de Kooning works with a
Schulte provenance marketed by John Re. Some are
in collections as yet unknown. “Owners should be
on notice,” Savona cautions, that “any Pollock or
de Kooning that has the Schulte provenance is fake
and cannot be legally sold as authentic.” Anyone
owning a work with a Schulte provenance may contact Agent Savona at the FBI, New York Office at
(212) 384-5000.
. . .
9 Press release U.S Attorney's Office, SDNY, December 1, 2014.
11 People of the State of New York v. John Re, No. SCI-00297-2015
10 The gallery was sued by one of the purchasers, however, and the
(Suffolk Cty. filed June 10, 2014).
case was settled out of court. Janis v. Vered Gallery, et al. No. 4601994
(N.Y. Sup. Ct. filed June 25, 2004).
12 Anders Karlsson v. John Leo Mangan, III, et al., No. 14-cv-4514-RJPR (C.D.Cal. filed June 11, 2015).
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